When he's out there giving ridiculous interviews and press conferences then having a go at him's fair enough, but feels like the media are just waiting for any excuse to pile into him now because he's an easy target and they don't like his boss.

Not sure we actually played much better than against Chelsea in midweek, we just had the players up front to make use of our possession and territory.

Badly need to start getting some of our injured back soon if we want to continue this good form though, some players are starting to look really leggy and the bench was a bit of an embarrassment on Saturday.

Delighted with how the season's gone so far (especially considering how it started) and I think we can still improve. Whether we can sustain a challenge will depend largely on what happens in January - even with everyone fit we look short in key areas - but I fully intend to enjoy it for now.

we were just really really shit and decided we don't shoot at goal anymore, just pass it around like a bunch of sideways moving chris_is_cool crabs. The only player who looked decent was Lee Chung-Yong. He was 'different class'. *grits teeth* But well done

Aren't they pretty much exactly where they should be? He never gets any money to spend so bobbling about between 10th and 16th is about par for the course. Impossible to imagine they could find someone better than him mid-season anyway

Can easily see Sunderland drag themselves out of it and the likes of Villa and Hull tumble down. Really, I'd describe everyone below United as a potential relegation candidate. Despite the big TEE VEE DEALCHESTS the overall quality of the division is wretched this year and the bottom half is much of a muchness bar Palace and Swansea, who get a partial Europa League pardon.

that £30m nu-Bale Erik Lamela transfers from Roma and looks bang ave and weirdy skull footballing clown gervinho parachutes in to take his place in the side and ends up playing like vintage Wynton Rufer.

it can work the other way as well, someone like flamini being fairly integral to arsenal's system and never being more than a squad player in the worst milan team for 30 years. they value tactical awareness and adaptability over nearly everything else sometimes.

the livorno manager was giving credit to the atalanta manager this week for forcing him to make 15 tactical changes during their match. i hope mark hughes does that next week.

But we've mainly looked at rugby and NFL. I thought that football had a more mature attitude to concussion that didn't suffer from the machismo of other, more physical sports. AVB proves that wrong.

It's never a manager's call. And if the player says he's fine, it's not his call either. Any loss of consciousness means the player should leave the field. I'd put money on Lloris not being able to remember yesterday's game, which is what many rugby/NFl players report after suffering hits to the head.

I'm a fan of AVB but I think a touchline ban should come for his comments.

NFL hitting is only made possible by the padding and helmets that players wear. Recently there's been a real effort by the league to control the hitting zone (making it from the shoulders down to thighs) but players are still going for the head and knees. They do this because they're own bodies are protected enough so that hitting those areas doesn't do damage to themselves.

The comparison is with boxing. When it was bare knuckle, head injuries were much lower than they are now. That's because hitting someone's head with a bare knuckle can break your hand. Gloves take away that danger, just like helmets make leading with your head in a tackle safer for the hitter.

There's also research that shows modern helmets themselves are conducive to concussions. The soft padding inside the helmet and containment of the head within a small space may not be helping at all. And it's seen as a contributory factor to some neck and back injuries too with force being transferred down the spine.

I said if we were still playing hopelessly into next year and were in the bottom half he can jog on, but he'd earned some time to turn things round. which he has, four wins on the bounce, up to 5th I think. had a bit of a rejig of our formation to a 4-3-2-1, bit defensive but getting the job done. wolves, peterborough and orient are looking good so it'll be tough to get into the top two, and the less said about the playoffs the better.

think the match in a couple of weeks away to wolves is going to be interesting as I think they'll be up there, so will give us an idea of where we are. might even go up there for the match, haven't decided yet.

I appreciate you're worried about Arsenal potentially ending your season on the weekend, but you needn't be in full-on aggro mode all week. Merely posted a silly transfer rumour, can't really be arsed with another round of kiss chase.